Is this relationship doomed? 18 months in with Moroccan bf 17 years younger.

[Laura401]

So... left abusive relationship 2 years ago. Managing kids 50/50 with ex, and met a man when I went on holiday. Didn't really think about age or anything, began a friendship online afterwards and feelings intensified over several months. Despite initial attraction, i was reluctant due to being older. I'm 45 and he is 28. We met again, 3 times for a couple of weeks at a time - it was he most natrual and incredible experience - and we talk multiple times a day. We work together on projects, and in fact he has saved my bacon a number of times. All the classic red flags are non existent and we are, to all extents and purposes, a couple - a very happy, incredibly connected and in love couple (a feeling i though i would never again feel). My kids know about him, and are ok, not over the moon, but ok, and a few very close friends know as well. Now things have progressed to meeting families and spending as much time together as possible. I have never before met anyone quite like him and trust him implicitly. Before i hear all the comments about men from this country, Muslim men, age gap relationships etc, I want to add that i have no intention of marrying or being a green card. I just want to ask whether anyone else has found themselves in this situation and whether there was a happy ending? I'm in a total quandary about what I should do moving forwards. Is this just a road to nowhere? Am I kidding myself this could work out? Is this a love conquers all situation? I am not one for convention and don't care what people other than my kids and my loved ones think. That said, any advice from people who have found themselves in a similar situation would be massively appreciated. Ty

@1975wasthebest

Of course not! I just think it’s strange that mid-twenties holiday romance just happens to be well qualified in the profession she works in, and is offering to do tasks for her (for free).

A favour? Or a ploy to reel her in?

Is this relationship doomed? Yes, of course it is. Even he were genuine and not a scammer, long distance relationships don’t work. There seems to be no prospect of either of you ever moving to be together. No point delaying the inevitable. End it now and move on.

I think as long as you don't marry him or move him in...

Enjoy it lasts.

He is younger so it most likely will run out of steam one day. Just be prepared to be potentially heart broken at it ending one day.

Chances are very high that this is a con. There are very very few relationships with such a disparity in age between people who live in the same country. It’s almost exclusively between an older richer person from a richer country and a much younger person from a poorer country.
You are experiencing the typical play where he seems too good to be true. Sadly, it is too good to be true. It likely will end very badly for you and your children.
There is possibly a very, very, very slim chance it’s genuine. Still, it can’t end well. There is too much to prevent it; distance, age gap, lifestyles, children. You will be much better off if you end it now and make a new independent life for yourself and your children. Make room in the long term for a new relationship that has a realistic future.

“Work together on projects” I can understand if you met through a work related conference. But someone you met waiting for a bus?

I think you can reframe this as not necessarily "We're in love forever, or it's doomed" to "some things are real and good and not for life".

ok so if we take everything you say at face value:
you get on well
he's helped you rather than tried to exploit you
he doesn't appear to be lying to you (but that is a guess because he is far away and he could lie as much as he wants)

ok that's all well and good and makes for a lovely time but doesn't mean that he is the right guy to marry you.
he may want kids, and family life
he may not want to be a carer in his 60s
he doesn't live in the same country as you

so he won't want to marry you, and why should he? It doesn't make him a cheating scammer (unless he is actually a cheating scammer, he could still turn out to be, but let's say he's a good man and a good friend as you believe he is). it just means you're having a real relationship that's right for now, but chances are you won't grow old together

Most women I know who’ve met Moroccan (or eg Turkish etc men) who are younger, it usually ends badly as the man is after a British passport and money.

I know a Moroccan man (ran a locksmiths) who’s been here for years married with kids and he says most of the younger ones are here for passports and money. And that their families prefer them to marry Muslim women and have children.

You keep saying you’re not naive, you definitely are!

So if you don't want a relationship that doesn't lead to marriage - and if fact if you think you probably do want to get married again - you need to set a time limit on this, or end it now. if you feel more fluid about the future, do what you wan t

Similar story with a friend of a friend, she’s now the single mother of a ND son.

I see you’ve avoided the question totally on how much time have you actually spent with him.

Haha it was so little after 6pm where I live when I’m wrote that.
It’sthe middle of the night now!

You say you’ve met his family, does that include his wife? It would be very unusual for a man of his age from his background to be unmarried.

Where do you get this information from? It's absolutely not unusual for Moroccan men to be unmarried at 28. Modern professional Moroccan men are very similar to European men in dating and relationships (at least up to marriage, maybe not so much after)

This woman I know is dating a much younger man from Turkey. Pretty much everyone who knows about it thinks she is being stupid, being scammed and that it will end in tears. I could never, ever do it myself. I would hate to be such a laughing stock. Just watch a few of those programmes on love cons and see how they play the long game, and how they are often talking to lots of women at once.

Yeah, some of the ‘romances’ are genuine but the chances of it being real are so incredibly slim.

You list the reasons why you trust him but they are typical long-con plays and you don’t see it. You are indebted to him, he has built trust and ‘proof’ that he doesn’t want you for a visa/money etc but he will… it will come.

Hi @Laura401 I’ve read all your posts but not the others.

To me it sounds like you’re well grounded, but also open enough to let life be the wild and mysterious thing it is. Even non-lasting relationships can be incredibly fulfilling.

I recently read Germaine Greer’s The Change, and she writes lucidly and poignantly about these kind of relationships. That the love & attraction & connection can be very real, and lasting… up to a point, but then the ravages of time are just too merciless. 28 + 45 is very different to 48 + 65, I guess. The menopause will change a lot. In the meantime, I’d embrace it, if I were lucky enough to find it.

I'm torn, part of me thinks he'll inevitably meet someone around his own age in his own country and you'll be left heartbroken...

Be wary of any sob stories where you end up feeling sorry for him and send him money. He's closer in age to your children so I'm not surprised they're not happy about this relationship. Don't marry him and never part with any cash.

OP: so he is a man in his prime with a good job , skills and is sociable / personable.

A recent study in Morocco revealed that only 40% of men have pre-marital sex and 80% of young women still believe that virginity upon marriage is important.

Join some dots.

All fine, carry on having fun while fun lasts. It’s great that he is helpful etc.

But you say you can’t see any red flags… you are the red flag (to yourself) and making yourself very vulnerable by falling in ‘love’. You didn’t have time to heal. An exit from an abusive marriage isn’t just about moving on from marriage it is about thoroughly freeing yourself from all the deep long lasting effects of abuse. Emotional, psychological, the patterns of your behaviour, your relationship with your own self.

It’s incredibly tempting to re-boost your spirits and ego with a new ‘thing’, and why shouldn’t you enjoy life? But distraction can be blinding.

Thank you for your post - in all honesty I'm not sure of the next steps. I guess im thinking about this as we are due to go on a road trip across the North of the country - I have a work contact to meet and we are staying with some family and friends of is too. We often stay at apartments, and riads, and have actually made friends with some foreign people as a couple - and despite thinking that our relationship existed in our own little bubble, it was actually these experiences that made me think more about whether the relationship had legs.
I did say in another comment that we discussed him getting over here (he needs to meet certain criteria to get a visa and he is working towards that currently) but I am.not facilitating this.

I don't know, OP.

I think there is a reason why you are posting on here asking for people's opinions. To me that says you have a gut feeling this isn't a great idea. Why would you care what people on Mumsnet think anyway?

A red flag for me is the fact that you have previously been in an abusive relationship, which I think makes you potentially vulnerable.

I would also be uncomfortable about the long distance. I was previously in a long distance relationship for several years but the end goal was always to live in the same country and marry and have children. I honestly wouldn't have bothered if I hadn't thought that was where we were heading, because the time and cost and emotional effort of all those trips back and forth wouldn't have been worth it otherwise.

I can see why you might be in a different frame of mind if you already have almost adult children, because it means you don't have that to worry about. And to be fair, I did once meet a woman in her 50s who lived in Australia and her partner of 15 years lived in Switzerland and they just travelled to all these fabulous places to see each other. She had grown up children too. But they were both fabulously wealthy, so the cost of all the travelling wasn't a barrier for them.

If I were you I would think honestly about how you see yourself growing old. Do you want to live in the UK? With a man? What if you stayed with this man for the next 40 years in a long distance relationship between the UK and Morocco and then one or both of you became too old and frail to travel to see each other? If that sounds far fetched, it's because it is. Because people in long distance relationships either break up or one of them moves so they can live together.

Personally I wouldn't recommend moving to Morocco and I doubt your children would be very happy about it either. So is he going to move to the UK or are you going to break up? And if you're going to break up, why waste years of your life on him?

That is exactly what will happen, and tbh from his pov what should happen!

There are MNers with 28 yo sons and that is probably what we would want for them, rather than a LDR with a 45 yo mum of 3.

My mate was you. He was wonderful, gainfully employed, all that crap. The moment he arrived in the UK for the first time on a holiday he stopped working. She sponsored him into the country, they got married in a private ceremony with no friends or family present and.... he's never worked another day in his life. He abused her financially and controlled her every move for over a decade before she escaped and he took a whole chunk of her house. She lost all her friends, was totally isolated and he was an absolute pig.

We had all warned her for two years before they married that this was a bad idea and she cut most of us off over that.

Don't waste your time with this man, he has an end game. Look for someone more local would be my advice. The money and contact requirements to stay with him is an insidious form of abuse and you may not even realise when it has already begun.

I think you sound sensible and won’t easily be duped. As long as you don’t marry him and bring him to the U.K. I don’t see the issue with it being a long distance thing. My friend married a man she met on holiday in North Africa, everyone said she was being duped / being stupid including her parents. They just celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary and are genuinely happy. I bet she wants to say to everyone of her friends - ha I don’t you so. Sadly for every one of her, there’s a lot of others who do get used for a visa. Just be cautious and have fun, you’re entitled to a life when your children grow up. Mine are 15 plus now and yes you can start to enjoy your life and put yourself first for once

Marriage is not on the cards. We are both financially independent. His family are relatively secure financially. He wants to grow his business. We have discussed me living there for some of the time (I can work remotely) but obviously this isn't feasible atm due to the children's ages. This is a vague possibility. Again, like I said, I'm still working out what I want. No rush decisions will be made.